CHAPTER VI.
A SEMINARY OF SEDITION.
Summary review of the founding of Virginia.
1606-1610.
Few episodes in English history are more curious than the founding of Virginia. In the course of the mightiest conflict the world had witnessed between the powers of despotism and the powers of freedom, considerations chiefly strategical led England to make the ocean her battle-ground, and out of these circumstances grew the idea of establishing military posts at sundry important strategic points on the North American coast, to aid the operations of the navy. In a few far-sighted minds this idea developed into the scheme of planting one or more Protestant states, for the increase of England's commerce, the expansion of her political influence, and the maintenance of her naval advantages. After royal assistance had been sought in vain and single-handed private enterprise had proved unequal to the task of founding a state, the joint-stock principle, herald of a new industrial era, was resorted to, and we witness the creation of two rival joint-stock companies for the purpose of undertaking such a task. Of the two colonies sent out by these companies, one meets the usual fate, succumbs to famine, and retires from the scene. The other barely escapes a similar fate, but is kept alive by the energy and sagacity and good fortune of one extraordinary man until sturdy London has invested so much of her treasure and her life-blood in it that she will not tamely look on and see it perish. Then the Lord Mayor, the wealthy merchants, the venerable craft-guilds, with many liberal knights and peers, and a few brilliant scholars and clergymen, turn to and remodel the London Company into a truly great commercial corporation with an effective government and one of London's foremost merchant princes at its head. As if by special intervention from heaven, the struggling colony is rescued at the very point of death, and soon takes on a new and more vigorous life.
1610-1624.
But for such lavish outlay to continue, there must be some solid return, and soon a new and unexpected source of wealth is found. All this sort of work is a novel experiment, mistakes are at first made in plenty; neither the ends to be obtained nor the methods of obtaining them are distinctly conceived, and from the parties of brave gentlemen in quest of El Dorado to the crowd of rogues and pickpockets amenable only to rough martial law, the drift of events seems somewhat indefinite and aimless. But just as the short-lived system of communism falls to the ground, and private ownership of land and earnings is established, the rapidly growing demand for tobacco in England makes its cultivation an abundant and steady source of wealth, the colonists increase in numbers and are improved in quality. Meanwhile as the interest felt by the shareholders becomes more lively, the Company acquires a more democratic organization. It exerts political influence, the court party and country party contend with each other for the control of it, and the latter wins. Hitherto the little Virginia colony has been, like the contemporary French colony in Canada and like all the Spanish colonies, a despotically governed community closely dependent upon the source of authority in the mother country, and without any true political life. But now the victorious party in the Company gives to Virginia a free representative government, based not upon any ideal theory of the situation, but rooted in ancient English precedent, the result of ages of practical experience, and therefore likely to thrive. Finally we see the British king awakening to the fact that he has unloosed a power that threatens danger. The doctrine of the divine right of kings—that ominous bequest from the half-orientalized later Roman Empire to post-mediæval Europe—was dear to the heart of James Stuart, and his aim in life was to impose it upon the English people. His chief obstacle was the country party, which if he could not defeat in Parliament, he might at least weaken by striking at the great corporation that had come to be one of its strongholds. In what we may call the embryonic development of Virginia the final incident was the overthrow of the London Company; but we shall see that the severing of that umbilical cord left the colony stronger and more self-reliant than before. In the unfolding of these events there is poetic beauty and grandeur as the purpose of Infinite Wisdom reveals itself in its cosmic process, slowly but inexorably, hasting not but resting not, heedless of the clashing aims and discordant cries of short-sighted mortals, sweeping their tiny efforts into its majestic current, and making all contribute to the fulfilment of God's will.